


Despair, Demand, Disobedience

by brodylover



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bodyswap, Demon Hunters, Demonic Possession, Despair Demons (Dragon Age), Halward Pavus' A+ Parenting, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:35:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6938122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brodylover/pseuds/brodylover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people will stop at nothing to learn. Some people will want to covet and keep. The Chargers dont back down from a job and when the job is to capture a lone Despair Demon for some rich magister, Bull has no choice but to take it. It's just the one demon after all, and the Vint has given them the tools to bind it. Should be easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Decisive

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, if there's anything you would like tagged, let me know. I know I'm really bad at tagging things. Or if you have an idea for where the story should go, some scene, some critique, go ahead and send it to me.

Demons. Of course it was freaking demons and this ‘Vint bastard wanted them to catch one, put it in a headlock and bring it into the deep of Tevinter, just so some Magister could study it. Bull’s lip quivered and he downed his pint, the nasty little Fereldan tavern no good for anything stronger. And stronger was something he needed because this guy, not even the employer but some hireling, wasn’t shutting up. 

He glared at Krem, who was doing most of the talking, slipping from Trade to Tevine and back again, but his lieutenant didn’t care. He knew all about Bull’s little problem with demons, but every time Bull tried to speak Krem interrupted and shut him down. Perhaps after this, Krem would have to be demoted. 

They were running low on the shiny stuff though and Krem had always been good at finding them jobs when they needed more. Anyways, it was just one little Despair Demon, all alone, wandering the countryside. 

That was a red flag to Bull. The whole business was a red flag. 

The Tevine Stranger handed them a box. Krem didn’t care about secrecy, opened it right there in the tavern. Inside there was a small amulet, with a jade inlay, wrapped in gold. Sigils were carved into the back of the stone and the surrounding metal. 

“Ah yes, that is a binding stone.” The ‘Vint bastard explained. “It will be absolutely vital to capturing the demon. Whosoever binds it is in control of the beast, is safe from it and it is forced to do whatever it’s binder commands.”

Bull took a glimpse at Krem. “Demonic slavery, got it.” Krem didn’t seem to mind. It was unlike him but then again, this was a fucking demon they were talking about. 

“How does it work?” Krem snatched the amulet back from Bull’s massive hands, as if just holding it put it in danger of breaking. 

“There are instructions in the box as well as some pay and a way to track the demon. That is the most delicate part. Took months to find a way to do so and by then it was so far away.”

Under the paper, near the bottom of the box was a vial. It was fogged glass with intricate snakes along the sides, the only places where the glass was fully transparent. There was liquid inside, stopped by a cork and some gold that had been melted over it. The liquid was too dark and too thick to be blood, human blood anyway. 

“This blood magic?” Bull lifted the vial up, looked at it with the light streaming down through the window. 

“Ha! Only so much as a Fereldan chantry would allow.” The stranger brushed away any hints of a threat in Bull’s voice. “That is a phylactery.”

Bull turned it about in his hands, tossed it from one to the other, each ministration making the ‘Vint tighten his posture. “That is one of a kind, you know.” He reached out for it, nervous, his voice suddenly timid. “Until you catch the beast there would be no other way to find it. Please. Uh, oh, um, please be careful.”

Bull dropped it back in the box. “Yeah, okay. We’ll get you your pet demon.”

“Never back down from a job, right?” the stranger cocked his head. He must have known how uncomfortable Bull was about all this. 

“What can I say?” Bull shrugged. “We’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

\--

Darkness. Everything was dark and cold and horrible. He wrapped his hands, too big, too long, nails too much of claws, around the shabby remnants of his cloak. He was alone, all alone, and there was no one out there to ever comfort him. No one would ever want to. 

He couldn’t help but sob, rocking forward, his own sorrow welling up inside of him. So worthless, unlovable, now in a form that fit. He fed himself on his own emotions, going from crying to sobbing to convulsion, all the while freezing. Cold so cold, why was everything so cold? His breath came out in fog. 

He was outside, in some field, he didn’t remember coming to. Everything was the green of the Fade, where it wasn’t too dark to see anything at all. He wasn’t sure if he was in the Fade or out of it. He lay in the grass, any exposed skin scratched and poked with sharp grass. He couldn’t walk, no matter how he tried, he could not fly, like he was ought to do. All he could do was lie in some field, a wretch, wrecked with sobs, tears freezing to the grass that cut at his delicate skin.


	2. Distrust

The letter was an easy read, clear and precise, but nonetheless disturbing. The phylactery would glow, grow brighter and brighter, and start to thrum when it was closer to the demon they were hunting. Even if it were in his pack he’d be able to hear it. At the moment though, atop Rohad, wandering the Hinterlands, he kept it in hand. So far the liquid had been still and there was no unusual feeling to it. 

Then there was the binding. One of them would have to bleed onto the amulet then they would have to get the demon to wear it. It would be best to bleed on it in advance, but there was no way to know which of them would get the opportunity to wrap it around the things throat. 

Their best bet would be to knock the thing out first, then do the ritual. It wasn’t something Bull wanted though. There was only one kind of demon he liked and it wasn’t the kind that was near him or alive or anything of that type. 

Bull almost dropped the damn vial when it started to glow, thrumming under his thumb. They were on the right path at least, whatever that meant. He tossed the thing over to Dalish. She knew more about demons than the rest of them. She could handle the tracking. 

\--

He shied away from the bandits that road down the streets, hollering and brandishing their rapiers, still red from a fresh hunt. He stayed away from the roads as much as possible, even though that was the more sure path. It was where people were and people were not exactly kind. 

Another mile, two, his feet hurting, so cold, frost digging into his toes, and he found their victim. A city elf by the looks of it, the Fereldan kind, full of angry and noise. She was on her side, dressed in not but her smalls, her arms wrapped around her gut. She was still breathing, still bleeding, still alive. 

He was slow to, but he approached with one hand extended, hoping to seem friendly. 

He stopped when the woman’s eyes went wide and the life came flooding back into her, her body scrambling, arms and feet dragging her away, as much as the pain would allow. 

He knelt down, showed his hands, tried to show that he would not harm her and tried to tell her as well. Instead of words though there was the sound of the chattering of teeth, lots of it, almost deafening to his own ears. 

“Get away!” she ordered, kicking out at him, “Stay away.”

The greenness of the Fade was stronger on her than on the countryside, pulling at her. He didn’t know if that was a sign of magical ability or if she was close to death, her soul to be dragged past the Veil. 

He reached out again and this time, he ignored the sputtering curses and the flailing limbs, made his way to the still weeping wound in her stomach. The bandits had taken everything from her, they needn’t take her life. 

She stilled as his hand touched her, the cold fingers sending shivers through her. He called on his magic, urged what little he knew of healing to come, but his magic was gone. Something else was there instead. It wasn’t so much a block as it was a replacement. He pushed again but with the same results. 

The elf’s skin was turning blue, her lips shivering. He pulled away. 

The wound was still there, but it was no longer bleeding. The blood had turned into crystals, made of ice, sharp and vicious. The slash in her body was geode of it, ice jutting out in strange new angles. Frost coated the soft skin around it. 

She was freezing, but the wound would not kill her. He pulled the cloak off of his back, it was black and tattered and thin, but it was better than nothing. He wrapped it around her, forcing her to wear it. She was too cold to fight back now. 

“You’re not supposed to do this.” She murmured through her trembling. “You’re to eat me or something. Not help.”

He didn’t know what she meant. Helping only came natural to him. He didn’t know much about eating anyone.


	3. Defeat

Three days and the vial was pulsing and throbbing, sounding more like a heart than the humming that Bull was expecting. They were too close for comfort and Dalish was pushing them further. She was loaded too, Lyrium potions on either hip, vials of the stuff in the strap that held her quiver. She normally kept her ‘bow’ hitched to the side of her horse but now she had it on her back, ready for anything. They were all ready, as ready as they could be. 

It shouldn’t be a problem. There were six of them and only one demon and they had magic on their side. A real demon. Bull shivered. He hated the thought of it. He liked a challenge, it made him feel strong and powerful, and there was some sort of grace in an opponent who could kill him so easily, but demons were something different. Dragons were something to cheer about, demons were something to hide away from and hope they never knew about you. 

When the path they were taking, through a field no less towards a forest, turned to ice, he stopped them all. The horses would do nothing but slide and fall and break their legs on this. The They were where they needed to go. 

The demon was small in the distance, walking instead of flying on the ice, looking like it had dropped something important and was looking for it. There were no people here though, no way for the demon to have arrived so it was most likely that the thing had been summoned by some idiot who was in way over their head. They were probably dead now. 

The Chargers split up, Bull and Grim heading straight towards the thing, Dalish and Skinner moving along the left, and Krem and Rocky going right. It hadn’t noticed them yet. They were all doing their best to stay silent. The sooner it caught on to them, the sooner they’d have to fight it and it was far better at long range than they were, Dalish had told them all that. 

Rocky pulled out a small case, one of his little explosives. Bull thought it was cute. Hopefully, it would work as a good distraction as they all got a bit closer. 

\--

The explosion shattered a good chunk of ice and he turned on it, screeching. He’d been found! As much as he’d tried to stay away from people, they had found him and now they were trying to hurt him. He didn’t know what to do, whether to hide or fight or just run. The damage was devastating, not that he cared about the ice he’d littered everywhere, and he shrank away from it, hissing. That was his voice, that horrible thing was his voice. 

Running seemed to be his best bet and he picked up his feet and dashed away, faster than a mortal could run, faster than he was certain that he could run. It was the wrong direction though as he headed straight towards a man and a dwarf, who bellowed at him and charged. 

Another screech and he turned, hoping to find another path before getting hit with that massive hammer than the man was carrying. There were others though, all charging, some of them screaming as they did so. He was surrounded, the explosion still crackling and burning in the one direction in which there weren’t enemies. 

He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to hurt anybody. He just wanted to fade away and be nothing. He didn’t even know what he was anymore, demon or man, and he wasn’t sure which one he had been initially. He didn’t know why these people, all people, hated him so much. 

The man with the hammer and the dwarf, lighting something on fire, were closest, still his best way of escape. He tossed an arm out at them, blue ice spilling out in a wave from his hand. He hoped that it wouldn’t hurt them too badly. 

The dwarf yowled as what he was holding froze in his arms, the ice taking over the small bag he carried and snuffing out the flame. The man just bellowed louder and squared his shoulders, a stronger attack, angrier. He should have expected that. 

He changed trajectory, turning the beam of ice over towards the man. He still wasn’t sure how he was doing it, where the mana was coming from, for he hadn’t slept a moment since whenever he’d come to this place. He didn’t even know if he was connected to the fade anymore. 

He hadn’t even touched the man with the ice before he felt a terrible heat enveloping him and he yowled, hands reaching back, clawing at the fire that spread over his robes. He could feel the arrow, deeply imbedded in his back, but the pain there was numb, unnecessary. It was the fire that had been on the arrow that was an issue. 

Then they were all upon him, although they didn’t seem certain in how to actually strike him. He wasn’t fighting them anymore, just writhing and he hoped that whatever they decided they would do so soon. Burning alive was the most agony he’d ever been in, at least, that he remembered, and he flipped onto his back, trying to melt the ice beneath himself to put out the flames. 

The big one, because of course there was a big one, was holding something that glowed green, as green as the fade, or home, or whichever it was. He was shouting to the others. He couldn’t hear any of it over his own agonized shrieking. 

Blood dripped on him. He stopped moving, ignoring the fire. There was blood. There was so much blood. It was on him, on his face, on his arms. He’s been bound but not with rope or chains, by blood. They had used it to bind him and then they had tried to change him. They had succeeded, but not in the way they had intended. He was not right. So much yelling. Someone was dead. At least one person. And blood. There was so much blood. It was tearing himself out of himself. 

Hands were on him, all over him. Everything went dark.


	4. Drowning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you dod123!

Easy. It was far too easy. Sure there was blood magic involved – no one could tell Bull it wasn’t without making a weird face – but it was still too easy. Demons didn’t typically travel alone and when they did, it wasn’t likely for them to try to flee. Sure it had done some damage to Rocky, Dalish was holding his hands and doing something with fire that was not magic in the least, and it was about to do the same to Krem, but it all looked very defensive. 

Bull didn’t like it. Bull didn’t like the way that it was lying there, motionless, tied up to a tree. Grim was good at knots, was good at a lot of things that Bull didn’t know how he got good at, but the thing was a demon. There was a good chance it would be able to magic its way out. 

The amulet lay on its chest, pulsing like a slow heartbeat. He didn’t believe that it would make the demon his pet, he wasn’t that stupid. Demons were evil and even if they did as they were told it would be only to the very extent of the word, they’d find some loophole in order to stab you in the back first chance that they could. 

“Well, not to be the bearer of hardship,” Krem coughed, sitting next to Bull where he was sharpening his axe. He didn’t need to, it was plenty sharp. “but how are we going to get a Despair Demon to Tevinter without the world noticing and freaking out?”

“Hey, that’s for you to figure out,” Bull grunted, “it was your idea to take the job in the first place.”

“Yes, but you took charge when you put the amulet on it. It’s yours now.”

“I’m in charge of the demon.” That sounded weird, sounded wrong, coming out of his mouth. He wanted to take it back, get rid of it. “I’ve got enough on my plate.”

“It can’t ride with the horses. They freak out whenever they get too close to it, but their curious all the same. I was thinking that we could hide it, make it wear a big cloak so it looks like some ranger or something, but it’s already wearing a bunch of cloaks and it doesn’t disguise it at all.”

“Well what if you just tie it to one of the horses? We could just avoid the roads and it would have to walk along behind us unless it wants to be dragged.” Bull shrugged. 

“Could work. Might be more than necessary.”

“Demon, Krem. I don’t need to worry about it being comfy.”

Krem turned away before saying anything though, looking over at the demon where it sat, still seemingly unconscious. Stitches was making his way over, knife in hand, and it was hard to tell if he was going to kill the thing or set it free. Neither option would be good. 

Bull grunted and stood. This, this was his job, planning things for Krem? Not so much. 

“What are you up to, Stitches?” he asked, catching up easily, his strides, while limping, were far longer than the humans.

“I want to see it,” Stitches answered, hands raised with the knife still in one, “I mean, without the cloak, unless that’s part of it, but we won’t know for certain until I get in there. And it’s unconscious, has been for a bit too long if you were to ask a medical professional, so I want to check it out.”

“I can tell you what it looks like under the robe.” Bull put a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were wide and his expression similar to that when they first met, completely impressed. “It looks like a demon.”

The look fell and Stitches wriggled out from under Bull’s grip. “You’re in charge of it, if it looks like I’m in any danger you can tell it to stop.” He continued on his path, Bull watching but not moving to follow. He really didn’t want to get any closer to the thing. 

Stitches just knelt down though, as if the demon were merely a patient. He pulled at the robes, tried to knock the hood back, but they were all frozen together. He started to saw with his knife, try to get between the layers. For all they knew, the robes were a part of its body. 

\--

Everything was dark but he could hear things. People talking. He couldn’t move, couldn’t understand what they were saying, the most clear one too far away for him to make out. He felt like he was underwater, sinking slowly, the water cold and digging into his bones. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been warm. 

He wriggled but it didn’t feel like he did at all. He seemed to be staying perfectly still, no matter how much he moved. 

And then heat, horrible, agonizing heat, a brand of fire, was on his cheek. One of the sounds was closer as was the one that he could almost understand, but still too far away. When the horrible chipping sound, the sawing, the cracking of ice started, it was all drowned out. He writhed pulled his head back, hissed into the nothingness. 

It didn’t work. The heat that was on him, the flame incarnate, didn’t move or, perhaps, he hadn’t. It was impossible to tell. He started to weep, heave, trying to vomit from the pain and unable to, nothing in him and him being nothing. 

Then it was over. The chipping stopped and light started to peer down through the depths, the sun a million miles away and so many shadows between. The heat faded, slowly, as if the cause was gone but the burn was still rampaging through him. 

He could hear them more clearly now, the one he couldn’t understand at all and the one he could. Saying something about how they shouldn’t wake it up. 

He wondered what ‘it’ was. 

“Looks like it has eyes, of a sort.” The voice was deep and rumbling. It sounded like something that was supposed to be in his chest. “I wonder if it can hear me, hear anything.”

The other voice said something but it was unintelligible. 

“Yeah, okay, but be at the ready. I don’t want this thing to wake up and kill everyone. Alright, this is a big mistake but here goes. Open your eyes.”

He shifted, finally able to move and the light came flooding in, all of those shadows gone.


End file.
